


Found

by xkidiot



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Gen, Irondad, Peter Parker Gets a Hug, Peter Parker Has a Family, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker Whump, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Trust Issues, also.. drowning, and gets kidnapped for a bit? you know how it be like that sometimes, and this is.. aftermath, basically Peter is an introspective dumbass, but its happy I promse, god why am I allowed to write, its all generally very Nice, okay this gets angsty, warning for like? very mild delirious suicidal ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-29 09:23:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19827199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xkidiot/pseuds/xkidiot
Summary: Things Peter finds during and after captivity.





	Found

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS: mild (and very incoherent) suicidal ideation, drowning, brief threats of violence. The usual, when it comes to peter parker and tony stark. Take care of yourself, read only what you feel safe reading, and enjoy.

Peter finds himself in a dark pool of water. It swirls into ink-like murky patterns around his waist, rippling stoically with each shift of his bones. He finds his breathing in deep strokes, swimming deliberately from his lungs to his throat, whistling out his nose in a low tone of humming and release. 

He finds his voice in the empty froth and quiet of the pool, shadows echoing off the blackened rock walls that cave the area in, and though there is no opening for light, He finds it here, too. It is not so obvious as a burning glass lamp or a celestial body of shimmering fire in the sky, but it is present nonetheless, illuminating the silence with a purity he’s only ever found in darkness. 

He finds his fingers knuckle-deep in the water, pushing for movement in the resistance of the liquid that strains between each digit, flowing from the nail of his thumb to the frayed nerves of his index finger, dead in its likeness to him. 

Barren bones are found null and void under his feet, somehow floating with more buoyancy than he, who is supposed to live and breathe and _exist,_ yet cannot find a purpose beyond this stone encasement. This water will not rise and it is safe, because he knows that he is free to descend at any moment he pleases, lowering _down, down, down_ , until the cold caress of the black water soothes his eyelids and filters through the strands of his hair, and he is _sinking, now,_ and it somehow feels more protected than any tainted oxygen he’s allowed into his body, and the lack thereof is wriggling in his stomach until it stills, shushing each voice behind his tired, closed eyes with the arrival of a leveled shade of silver, minus the shine.

It is calm and he finds permission to spread his arms under these depths, lifting his head to a fading sky that ripples above this water, pitch and stygian, and though he knows that he is suffocating, he feels freer than ever before. It is safe, here. It is still and he finds the clay floor of this pool, whispering solitude that sand could never bring, resolute with less cruelty than an abrupt stone might insist or that a cement landing might accomplish and scratch. He finds that this is not violent. This is a gentle submersion, fleeting and yet so infinite, lapping at the matter in his brain with kind, devouring, acceptance. 

He finds the muffled heartbeat of the water between his ears, and it speaks to him in a language he does not know. He never learned it, and he believes that makes it all the more important to listen in reverence, sincerely believing each syllable despite not knowing where they begin and end. This commitment weighs leaden and immovable, but he feels no pain in compliance. He feels open, and he feels alive despite the fact that he is dying with each lack of breath, and he feels _free, free, free_ , and he feels his soul succumbing to the stresses that his mortal flesh cannot endure, and the water stays cool and instead of a vice, it is a blanket, and this is _his_ decision. 

He is untethered and unlimited, unshackled, and unbound and unrestrained, unfettered, he is shrinking and dipping further beneath the horizon. 

Then a choking splash, and he finds shock. 

\---

There are murmuring voices, now, too many to count, some filled with panic and some with stupified grief, but nearly all of them are _warm_ . Peter forgot how that could feel, he thinks, how _warm_ a sentence or a name could sound in his shivering skin, not twitching like the cold, but alive and thrashing in heat. 

“I’m not moving- _no-_ I’m- _I’m not leaving him_ -” 

“Mr. Stark, he needs to get to the OR-” 

“Then I’m going with him, _dammit!”_

Peter finds himself floating, too soon, and when he opens his eyes again he can’t remember that he closed them in the first place. 

\--- 

“Shh, it’s okay, baby. It’s okay,” He hears, and it sounds familiar, and his mind, struggling for air and life screams, _‘May’_ , and he thinks he believes it. 

He finds a warmth on his hand with a stripe of cold, and fear grips him tight, but the voice calms him again, promising, “It’s okay, Pete, you’re okay, I love you, you're okay."

He doesn’t open his eyes but he knows the voice is definitely his aunt’s, now, and the warmth is in the shape of her fingers on his own, and the cold stripe isn’t dissimilar to Ben’s wedding ring that always rests above her own, and he sinks back down into a comfort and decides that _this is okay, too._

\--- 

When his eyes are fully open, they are burdensome and jaded, his fatigue catching up with him each time he attempts to swallow. He finds a cruel light in the room, bright and white and _hot_ , and it feels like it’s coming from inside him. 

It isn’t.  
It’s coming from the tall glass window and shatters the blinds with shards of vision, and he can see May and Tony collapsed in two chairs underneath it, both with bags under their eyes and tangles in their hair. He claws at the empty air, but he doesn’t think he can see his hands moving, and so he resolves to close his eyes and try again when he can remember how. 

\---

“Tell me he’s dead.” He orders the shaking mission director, who refuses to meet his eyes, “Tell me _the bastard that hurt my kid_ is dead.”

“Mr. Stark, we can’t promise the outcome of the mission until it’s completed-” 

“Tell me he’s _dead_ , or I swear to _god_ I’ll gut you in his place- _christ_ , I told Fury, I should’ve been the one to go-” 

Pepper tugs on his arm to calm him. 

“Tony,” She warns gently, and he trembles with a rage unheard of, “Peter needed you here. He still does. You know that.”

A crackle is heard over the mission director’s comm. The man pauses. A wave of relief washes over the director's face as he turns to the billionaire. 

“Mission status received. Agents have taken out the target.” 

Tony collapses to his knees, heaving dry air that refuses to stay put. 

The mission director finds the strength to nod firmly, reminding him, 

“Your boy’s captor is dead, Mr. Stark.” 

\--- 

“You about ready to come in yet, kid?” 

Peter turns around from his spot on the tower balcony overlooking the streets of New York. The air is summery and soft, and for the first time in a while, he feels welcomed in the subtlety. His arm jerks with energy that doesn’t match the rest of him, but he finds it in himself to droop a lazy smile across his face as he looks at his mentor. Tony's eyes follow Peter with a fear that hadn’t been present before, like he’s scared that the boy will break in half if he’s not careful, but Peter thinks that’s silly, because _what could Iron Man possibly have to be scared of?_

“Sure thing, Mr. Stark.” 

The man nods and pauses as though he’s about to speak, but decides against it, wrapping an arm firmly around the boy's shoulders and steering him inside. 

Peter finds peace.

\---

Mr. Stark’s hands are shaking under the blanket, and Peter knows not to mention it directly. To acknowledge would be to confirm, and that’s the last thing that either of them needs. 

  
A nameless movie plays quietly in the background noise of his mentor’s heartbeat, light from the screen illuminating their huddled forms. Peter could open his eyes, now, and announce that the television has woken him up. He could escape the uncomfortable weight of being missed right now, and let Mr. Stark deal with his anxieties on his own like the man is famous for. 

Instead, Peter is feigning sleep. He shifts innocently on the couch, nestling his head into the crook of Tony’s shoulder and neck as though it’s an unconscious yawn, like he hadn't ever been awake to think twice about the action. The man’s breath has been heavy and fluttering for weeks since Peter returned home, but he lets out an imperceivable sigh at the contact, and the arm that had been loosely draped across the back of the couch now has an excuse to lift itself over Peter’s cuddled torso and hold the boy tightly. 

It must ground the man, Peter thinks, to remember that his protege is still _here_ and _present_ and not floating away in a pool of icy water, built by a madman after revenge. It must be a relief of sorts, to mutter, _“I love you”_ , brokenly into Peter’s hair over and over again, and _that_ must be why Mr. Stark keeps doing it. _That’s why_ he’s been sinking into a rhythm of casualty when Peter is awake and responsive, electing to show him only the unwavering parts- hiding the vulnerability for when he thinks Peter is asleep. It’s grounding, surely. 

If he’s more honest with himself, Peter can remember calloused fingers tugging the blanket more snugly around his frame, squeezing his ‘unconscious’ arm and slowing the erratic heartbeat that Peter had been listening to the entire time. It doesn’t just calm down Mr. Stark, Peter reminds himself, and it feels like falling asleep. 

When he wakes, the openness of affection hasn’t fled, only it is Mr. Stark who is asleep, now. The lines of stress disappear from the man’s worried brow, thankfully, and Peter flounders for sanity at the realization that it physically _hurts_ to not say, “I love you too” when he so easily _can_. 

\---

It comes out naturally, the same way the word “Dad” does- in a quick slip that Peter wants so _desperately_ to run away from. 

  
He doesn’t. 

Actually, he forces himself to cement his feet to the ground, turning and facing the frozen man he had just casually thrown an “I love you, bye” to. 

Mr. Stark is unmoving, an eyebrow trained in an arch, and though he portrays the picture of nonchalance, Peter knows that the man is on the cusp of breaking, if only Peter will repeat it, or confirm, acknowledge, confirm, acknowledge, _splash, ripple, wake up_. 

The boy coughs. 

“I- well, I, um... I do.” he tries weakly, fiddling with the drawstrings of his hoodie. “Love you, I mean.” 

  
Mr. Stark hasn’t moved, not yet, and Peter knows he needs more to go on, so he turns his gaze to the ground and blushes. “But, w-well, you knew that already, right? That I love you? ‘Cause I do. You’re like… well, I mean-” He cuts off abruptly, unsure where he’s going with that. The stare his father figure is giving him has warped into an unreadable one, just barely grazing disbelief, or maybe fear, and then, “You’re like a dad, I guess.” 

Peter mentally smacks himself, because _that’s not firm enough_ , and Tony has always needed to be _sure_ about sentiment before he can return it, cause he’s been betrayed before, and Peter knows that, Peter’s _been_ there, Peter _just got back from that_ , and “Not- not ‘I guess’. I mean that you _are_. Like a dad. M-my dad.” 

There’s a breath, maybe two, until he can hear the older man clear his throat. 

“Pete, look at me.” 

He stalls, though, unsure what he’s going to get, because even though it’s the farthest thing reality, he worries there may be _rejection_ , and after what he’s been through- rejection? Can he handle that? 

He doesn’t have to, because Tony steps closer, and, “Peter.” 

The kid is used to following orders, and it’s instinctual to do what his mentor says without a doubt, and then he’s _there_ , meeting his eyes and they’re a little more watery than he’s ever seen and- oh _god_ , Tony grips his sleeve and he’s getting pulled into a hug faster than he can blink. It’s overwhelming and heavy- _emotional,_ nearly burning with kinetic energy- and his arms move of their own accord to wrap around Tony’s back. There’s an oath in that, Peter finds. 

He’s found a lot of things lately. 

Most important of them, though, is the lowest swear that Mr. Stark gives him, immovable and inevitable. 

“Love you too, kid. _My_ kid.” 


End file.
